President Obama and the National Immigration Forum (NIF) are ramping up the pressure on Republicans in the House to legalize millions of illegal aliens and to create a pathway to citizenship for them. NIF is flying in pro-amnesty lobbyists today to push House Republicans to back the Schumer-Rubio bill passed by the Senate in June.

However, according to comments made by an NIF Board member, former Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, illegal aliens are involved in serious felonies including rampant child identity theft. While serving as Utah Attorney General in 2005, Shurtleff issued a press release and held a press conference where he said:

The ongoing investigation has uncovered an alarming new crime spree involving illegal aliens and identities stolen from victims under the age of 12 ... Identity thieves are no respecters of age. They will steal your children's ID, ruin their credit, and hurt them in ways never thought possible before they can graduate from grade school. Children are vulnerable even if parents do everything right ... Let me tell the illegal aliens out there if they come here, they steal out kids identity, trash their credit – if we catch them not only are we going to prosecute them but we are going to deport them.

Since an estimated 75 percent of illegal aliens use illegally obtained Social Security numbers and the numbers of children are strongly preferred, Shurtleff's statement has profound implications for those who would grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens.

Based on his comments, there are two questions that the president, members of Congress, and all others who support legal status for illegal aliens, including the NIF, need to answer before any action is taken on immigration reform bills in the House.

Do you agree with National Immigration Forum board member, Mark Shurtleff, that illegal aliens who have used the Social Security numbers of American children should be prosecuted and deported? If not, why not?

Would you support legislation that creates an office with a mandate to help American children undo the damage incurred when illegal aliens use their Social Security numbers and a victims' restitution fund? If not, why not? (Note: Damage includes destroyed credit histories, illegal alien arrest records attached to American children's Social Security numbers, corrupted medical records, wages earned by others credited to American kids' Social Security numbers, income tax liabilities for income earned on American children's Social Security numbers, etc.)

It would be interesting to see how the president, members of Congress, the NIF, and the other advocates for legal status for illegal aliens would respond to these two questions.

Will they continue to demand that illegal aliens be granted amnesty from the harm that they have done to the innocent American children whose Social Security numbers they have illegally used and from the multiple job-related felonies that they have committed?

Will legalization advocates knowingly and deliberately turn their backs on the innocent American kids who are the victims of illegal alien driven identity theft?

Will elected officials tell American children that they are on their own and that their government cares more about illegal aliens that it does for them?

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.